 | Long-time pickup manufacturer Seymour Duncan only recently
began designing stompboxes, releasing their first in 2004. In
keeping with the company’s expertise, it was designed to boost
the output of pickups. The success of the SFX-01 Pickup Booster
Gain Boost has carried on and encouraged Seymour Duncan to
continue pushing the boundaries of foot-controlled effects. Since then, Seymour Duncan pedals have included the Tweak Fuzz, Classic and Twin Tube Mayhem, and Shape Shifter. The latest offerings include the Double Back Compressor, allowing you to add uncompressed signal back in; the Déjà Vu Tap Delay, which combines real BBD delay with the horsepower of full featured digital delay; and the Twin Tube Blue, which turns a single channel into a three-channel blues-to-rock monster. |
 SFX-09 Double Back Compressor1. True Bypass Switch All Seymour Duncan stompboxes are true bypass, removing the signal path from the circuit. 2. Sustain Knob The Sustain Knob determines the length of sustain. With plenty on tap, higher settings can dramatically increase sustain, as well as the natural noise level present in your guitar signal. 3. Attack Knob The Attack Knob adjusts the attack speed from immediate to 50ms. Use a lower setting to tightly track everything you play, or a higher setting for a smooth, natural-sounding compression. | |
| 4. Double Back Knob One of the most unique features of the Double Back Compressor, the Double Back knob blends in the uncompressed signal to restore some of the dynamics and “feel” lost in compression. The dial allows anywhere from 0 to 34dB of dry signal to be mixed back in to the output. 5. Double Back EQ Switch Toggles between three Double Back frequency options: “High” (blends only top end so sharp attack and harmonics still come through), “Mid” (blends back mid-range frequencies for fattening up your tone), and “Full” (blends back the full frequency range to enrich overall dynamics). 6. Volume Knob Used to achieve the desired level balance between the sound through the compressor and the bypassed sound. Other Features Not Pictured: Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA) Compressor type Compression Ratio adjustable from 1:1 to 20:1. Distortion less than 0.3% at 300mV RMS output at 1 kHz. | |
 SFX-10 Déjà Vu Tap Delay1. Tap Tempo Switch Pressing the Tap Tempo Switch in time with the beat will adjust the delay rate to match the song. 2. Ratio/Delay Time Toggle Switches between a ratio (see below) and a set delay time. 3. Ratio/Delay Time Knob Rate Mode: Adjusts the rate of the delay effect, from 32 ms to 6 seconds; fully clockwise enters the Déjà vu’s loop mode. Ratio Mode: Switches between five distinct tempo subdivisions: 1:1 (half notes), 1.33:1 (dotted eighth notes), 2:1 (quarter notes), 3:1 (triplets), and 4:1 (sixteenth notes). | |
| 4. Tempo LED The “Heartbeat” LED acts as a visual guide to help keep the tempo. 5. Modulation Knob Lets you add a flanger/chorus effect to the analog delay signal. Sweeps through rate and depth settings on the same knob. 6. Feedback Knob Dictates how many repeats play before the sound fades away. Fully counter-clockwise allows only one repeat, while moving it clockwise increases the repeats beyond infinity. 7. Digital/Analog Blend Knob The Blend control sets the level of balance between the warmth of a Bucket Brigade delay and the clean sound of a microprocessor- based digital delay. 8. Active LED The Active LED lights up when the delay is engaged. 9. Dry/Wet Blend Dials in the amount of delay heard in relation to the original signal. Hard left will produce dry only while hard right will produce delays only. 10. True Bypass/Trailing Repeats Switch Switch selectable between hardwire true bypass and electronically switched trailing repeats. 11. True Bypass Switch Other Features Not Pictured: Using a volume pedal as a control, you can adjust the level of the delay and/or the amount of repeats. The Wet Out jack allows a loop to be created after the delays are sent from the unit, allowing effects to be added to the delay trail. | |
 SFX-11 Twin Tube Blue1. Channel Select Switch Toggles between Lead and Rhythm channels. 2. Lead Channel Gain Knob Controls the gain for the Lead channel. Provides varying degrees of overdrive, from bite to super-hot lead tones. 3. Lead Channel Volume Knob Controls the volume for the Lead channel. Regulates loudness relative to the other channel and to the bypassed sound. 4. Rhythm Channel Gain Knob Controls the gain for the Rhythm channel. Provides varying degrees of overdrive, from clean tube tone to crunch. 5. Rhythm Channel Volume Knob Controls the volume for the Rhythm channel. Regulates loudness relative to the other channel and to the bypassed sound. | |
6. Treble Tone Knob Controls high frequency content in both channels with greatest effect in the 2 kHz – 20 kHz range. 7. Bass Tone Knob Controls low frequency in both channels with greatest effect in the 40 Hz – 200 Hz range. 8. True Bypass Switch Switches between true bypass and the channel activated by the Channel button. Other Features Not Pictured: Two premium, subminiature Phillips-Sylvania 6111 dual triode tubes; 100% vacuum tube signal path. Fully encapsulated toroidal transformer. |
For more information:
seymourduncan.com
Guitarists are used to coveting cranky, old gear, but if you’re not a rack user, the H3000 might not be for you! If you ever see one of these in a studio, be sure to take some time to check it out, and maybe give the plugin a try.When it debuted in 1987, the H3000 was marketed as an “intelligent pitch-changer” that could generate stereo harmonies in a user-specified key. This was heady stuff in the ’80s! But while diatonic harmonizing grabbed the headlines, subtler uses of this pitch-shifter cemented its legacy. Patch 231 MICROPITCHSHIFT, for example, is a big reason the H3000 persists in racks everywhere. It’s essentially a pair of very short, single-repeat delays: The left side is pitched slightly up while the right side is pitched slightly down (default is ±9 cents). The resulting tripling/thickening effect has long been a mix-engineer staple for pop vocals, and it’s also my first call when I want a stereo chorus for guitar.
The second-gen H3000S, introduced the following year, cemented the device’s guitar bona fides. Early-adopter Steve Vai was such a proponent of the first edition that Eventide asked him to contribute 48 signature sounds for the new model (patches 700-747). Still-later revisions like the H3000B and H3000D/SE added even more functionality, but these days it’s not too important which model you have. Comprehensive EPROM chips containing every patch from all generations of H3000 (plus the later H3500) are readily available for a modest cost, and are a fairly straightforward install.
In addition to pitch-shifting, there are excellent modulation effects and reverbs (like patch 211 CANYON), plus presets inspired by other classic Eventide boxes, like the patch 513 INSTANT PHASER. A comprehensive accounting of the H3000’s capabilities would be tedious, but suffice to say that even the stock presets get deliciously far afield. There are pitch-shifting reverbs that sound like fever-dream ancestors of Strymon’s “shimmer” effect. There are backwards-guitar simulators, multiple extraterrestrial voices, peculiar foreshadows of the EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid and Rainbow Machine (check out patch 208 BIZARRMONIZER), and even button-triggered Foley effects that require no input signal (including a siren, helicopter, tank, submarine, ocean waves, thunder, and wind). If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute. (Spin the big wheel and find out what you’ve won!)
“If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute.”
But there’s another, more pedestrian reason I tend to reach for the H3000 and its rackmount relatives in the studio: I like to do certain types of processing after the mic. It’s easy to overlook, but guitar speakers are signal processors in their own right. They roll off high and low end, they distort when pushed, and the cabinets in which they’re mounted introduce resonances. While this type of de facto processing often flatters the guitar itself, it isn’t always advantageous for effects.
Effects loops allow time-based effects to be placed after preamp distortion, but I like to go one further. By miking the amp first and then sending signal to effects in parallel, I can get full bandwidth from the airy reverbs and radical pitched-up effects the H3000 can offer—and I can get it in stereo, printed to its own track, allowing the wet/dry balance to be revisited later, if needed. If a sound needs to be reproduced live, that’s a problem for later. (Something evocative enough can usually be extracted from a pedal-form descendant like the Eventide H90.)
Like most vintage gear, the H3000 has some endearing quirks. Even as it knowingly preserves glitches from earlier Eventide harmonizers (patch 217 DUAL H910s), it betrays its age with a few idiosyncrasies of its own. Extreme pitch-shifting exhibits a lot of aliasing (think: bit-crusher sounds), and the analog Murata filter modules impart a hint of warmth that many plug-in versions don’t quite capture. (They also have a habit of leaking black goo all over the motherboard!) It’s all part of the charm of the unit, beloved by its adherents. (Well, maybe not the leaking goo!)
In 2025, many guitarists won’t be eager to care for what is essentially an expensive, cranky, decades-old computer. Even the excitement of occasional tantalum capacitor explosions is unlikely to win them over! Fortunately, some great software emulations exist—Eventide’s own plugin even models the behavior of the Murata filters. But hardware offers the full hands-on experience, so next time you spot an old H3000 in a rack somewhere—and you’ve got the time—fire it up, wait for the distinctive “click” of its relays, spin the knob, and start digging.
